Friday, October 12, 2007

Best Features of Your Favorite MMORPG's

Keen and Graev have had an ongoing probe into what type of games people prefer. If a feature hasn't been invented or experienced yet you really only have past games to go by. So I thought I'd list each MMO I've played ranked in order of which I enjoyed the most and what features about them I recall enjoying most.

1. Everquest 1 - The features that stand out that I missed in later games are having a home village where you start and feel part of; setting up camp and killing mobs for a chance at a nice drop, faction, and experience (I hate quests); being able to pass on items to lower level players and buff them; being able to twink your second character; and also there were the warm fuzzies when you right click an npc of a certain faction and get a message that they regard you warmly (they like me, they really like me!)

2. Dark Age of Camelot - Odd as it may sound, I could spend an hour with my hunter exploring the forests of Midgard listening to the wonderful mood music in the background just plunking away at evildoers. Midgard was a bit dark and brooding, and the music combined with the beautiful viking structures just all came together. You had the option of experiencing in a dungeon or outdoors, doing quests, or doing mission-type instanced dungeons which were very quick with great experience. And of course the housing was great. It took me a year to save up for that Hibernia mansion with the climbable tree growing through the center. Also has been the only housing I've experienced where you can decorate your yard as well.

3. Everquest 2 - A great crafting experience, killing mobs gains reasonable experience as a means of leveling, and I love the collection quests to give me something else to work on. Also, as in EQ1, I like the chance at finding named mobs throughout most zones. And of course I could just hang around the Kelethin area listening to the music there. Just love that.

4. World of Warcraft - Zones were beautiful and manageable on my previous ancient computer. The night elf areas were unlike anything I'd ever experienced in a game. And they had a wonderful variety of zones....enchanted forests, snowy mountains, spooky Duskwood, and even prehistoric-type zones.

5. Star Wars Galaxies - Setting up your house almost anywhere, owning a shop and merchants to sell your goods, entertainers and cantinas filled with players hanging out together (at one time anyway).

6. Lord of the Rings Online - While I didn't like the gameplay, one aspect that I did enjoy was watching the npc's living their lives. This was particularly more evident in the Shire. I can recall one Hobbit in a boat on the river bragging how he just rowed all the way from Frogmorton. A nearby female proceeded to give him a tongue lashing telling him to get out of there before he drowns. The little things like that add so much to the "aliveness" of a town.

7. Horizons - Great crafting similar to EQ2 and again as with other games I loved the music in certain spots. And of course who can resist trying out a dragon, and a pretty neat looking one at that.

8. Anarchy Online - Quick dungeon missions for leveling. The Shadowlands expansion actually was pretty neat to explore and experience in for a time. Even without the expansions, playing the free version is not too bad and can easily be played for a few minutes at a time.

9. Dungeons and Dragons Online - The one thing I did enjoy was the class structure and the dungeons themselves. However, the group reliance and no sort of alternative play had me leaving fairly quickly.

10. City of Heroes - The only thing I enjoyed was character creation. The slummy cities were depressing to me.

I think that covers all that I've played for more than a quick trial. I'm curious how others would rank the games they've played and what features they enjoyed most from them. Would love to know!

3 comments:

I liked the combat system in Final Fantasy XI, particularly the skillchain system and the bonuses for chaining mobs. The game was too much of a grind though, so I left when it became apparently I'd taken on a second job - for free...

I agree that the best thing in City of Heroes is the character creation. I also liked the mission system a lot; its nice to be able to be able to just grab a group and go without worrying about who is on what quest, etc. The game was very conducive to grouping. But its combat grew tiresome quickly.

Dungeons and Dragons Online actually made rogues feel like rogues, as they could detect and disarm traps and locate secret doors, etc. I liked the use of traps and puzzles in the quests. The lack of randomization made it rather dull to go through since every group had already done them. Also, the inability to solo made it impossible for me to play given my time constraints and schedule.

FF was one of the few that I never tried. I've heard several times it was extremely grindy.

I liked the COH missions. I much prefer missions to quests. I just didn't enjoy the setting.

And yeah I heard rogues complain about that many times. Traps were always in the same place, so if they were new and wanted to really experience the dungeon, the older players knew already where the traps were and just wanted to rush through it, sort of defeating the whole purpose of playing the rogue.

I really enjoyed reading these posts and thought I would share about what I've played: WOW, Guild Wars and Silkroad.

I started playing WOW when I moved in with my boyfriend (now husband) three years ago. Other than a fluke addiction to Dragon Warrior Monsters for gameboy, I had no previous gaming experience. I had a love/hate relationship with WOW. I loved creating new characters for some reason, and enjoyed crafting and selling on the auction house. I grew to like earning reputation and the battlegrounds. I didn't like grouping or even questing at first. I'm a free spirit who hates to be told what to do. (Kill 20 bears for you? What have YOU done for ME? Kill your own bears, rude NPC.)I also hated paying Blizzard every month alongside all the other millions, and wanted to give the underdogs a chance. So I moved on.

The second MMO I tried was Guild Wars: Nightfall. I loved this game. The realistic graphics, the interesting storylines, the puzzles of which skills would be best for different missions (and the puzzle-like missions themselves), collecting heroes, collecting dyes for outfits, socializing with positive people who weren't ordering me constantly (in Guild Wars, there are several ways to do something well, so people can discuss what works without so much ordering around). Guild Wars was like a good book that kept going and going... I missed the auction house and crafting, but no game has it all.

Eventually, Guild Wars started boring me like a soap opera. Endless books do eventually, I guess. I dabbled with WOW on and off and then... found Silkroad Online. It's the first truly free to play I attempted. I was impressed. Like Guild Wars and WOW, Silkroad had impressive graphics. The characters, cities, and world were realistic and fascinating. The pets were cute. I was amazed.

The in game translation was hard to understand, but, luckily, I found excellent guides online to fill me in. I actually liked getting lost in translation, it made the experience feel more exotic (and funny).

I also liked the bots who were pooping money and drops all over the place. My character made daily litter pick-ups on her level 10 horse. My char sold the bots' litter (along with her own loot) in a merchant stall while I slept. I found the stall system as addictive as the auction house system in WOW, and quickly made enough $ to buy what really hooked me on the game: a wolf puppy.

Now my Chinese fire-spearing merchant had an adorable puppy to fight by her side. Unlike in WOW, my pet could do all my fighting and I could just loot and gain experience. My puppy was fairly powerful, too. It was like having a 70 run me through instances in WOW - easy mode. Very relaxing after a stressful day. To round out the family, I spent real money on a cute cat-bot that automatically did my looting for me. The kitty would run off to grab bots' drops while pups and I blazed through new territory. The cat could not die. She cost $5 a month, but I think that's peanuts for a game I enjoy so much.

Silkroad has its flaws (servers full between 6am-4pm EST, NO storyline, not many English speakers, a few loud rude people,...) but no game is perfect, right? It suites me.

I know there's LOTS of other great games out there, but there's so little time... I hope others post, too, I enjoy reading about what else is out there.